Sale Of State Bungalows/lands…Publish List Of All Beneficiaries – NPP

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has asked the Lands Commission to publish the full list of beneficiaries of state lands and bungalows from 1982 when the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) assumed the reins of power.

That, according to the party, would set the records straight to debunk the perception that all the lands were sold during the Kufuor administration.

Reacting to a publication in the Wednesday, May 20, 2012 of the Daily Graphic, on the grabbing of government lands and bungalows, the NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Okaikoi South and Communications Director of the party, Nana Akomea, said the story sought to create the impression that government lands were sold by the NPP government to its members.

He explained that there was a state land policy under which the government allocated lands to individuals, but in 1997, the NDC government under President Jerry John Rawlings introduced the Accra Redevelopment Plan to properly utilise government lands and bungalows which had been sitting on large tracts of land.

Consequently, he said, the Lands Commission was directed to rezone the areas for the Accra redevelopment project.

He said the redevelopment was first piloted at Cantonments, near the Togolese Embassy in Accra, where the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pulled down about seven bungalows and replaced them with 67.

According to Nana Akomea, the policy was still in place and the government was still implementing it by selling more lands to individuals.

He alleged that the current Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Lands Commission, Mr Oko Nikoi Dzani, also of NDK Financial Services, acquired one of the estates at Cantonments in 2011.

He gave a list of NDC members, functionaries and other Ghanaians, including President John Evans Atta Mills; Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, a former Minister of Education; Professor Kofi Awoonor, the Chairman of the Council of State; Mr Peter Nanfuri, a former Inspector-General of Police (IGP); Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, and Mr Martin B. K. Amidu, a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, who had acquired government lands and bungalows at the North Legon Residential Area, the South Legon Development Scheme and the Ofankor Residential Area from 1985 to date.

According to the May 20 publication, a government report revealed that public officers at the Lands Commission, the Ministry of Works and Housing and the Town and Council Planning Department designed various illegal schemes to allocate government bungalows and parcels of land to politicians, government officials and their friends without Cabinet approval and direction.